The Armenian Church

How do we get so side tracked? Saturday we started out going for a burner for Steve's BBQ pit. When we left the BBQ place, we wandered a few blocks down and I saw the biggest banyan tree ever - high up on a hill. Wandering around a bit, we discovered the 'hill' was actually Ft Canning. We climbed up the hill, and boy did we find a treasure of a park. It is beautiful! Not going to share about that now, but more about it another day. After browsing around a bit, we went down a path, headed to eat and we found a placque outlining a couple of tours. We have seen so many buildings we had an interest in learning more about, so this was our chance! So we started taking Trail 2 of the Singapore National Heritage Board Trail downtown.

More about these trails can be found here: http://www.nhb.gov.sg/pe/sites_trails/civic_district_trail_2.html

Well, as with everything else we find in Singapore, the directions from place to place is about as clear as mud - but we did find some interesting places. I am going to list them individually on my blog so when I go to scrapbook about it, I will be able to find them easily.

This is the Armenian Church on Hill Street. It is a wonderful place to browse through - sitting just below Ft Canning.



"Modelled after the Mother Church in North Armenia, this is Singapore's oldest Christian church. It was built in 1834-1835 and dedicated to St Gregory the Illuminator. Take a walk in the peaceful memorial garden where pioneers of the Armenian community are buried. Here too lies the grave of Miss Agnes Joaquim, after whom Singapore's national flower Vanda Miss Joaquim is named."

"The small, but elegant building does great credit to the public spirit and religious feelings of the Armenians of this settlement The Church is one of the most ornate and best finished pieces of architecture that this gentleman ( Coleman ) can boast of.."

Singapore Free Press (1936)



More can be read about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Gregory_the_Illuminator



It is a very quaint, small church with a quiet area in the back. It was very inviting:



Once we got in, what we saw took our breath away. These sculptures are incredibly old and very moving.


There was a cemetery in the back area as well, the headstones and markers were incredible to look at. For whatever reason, I have always been drawn to cemeteries - the story on a head stone often says so much more than the dates. I try to read the 'dash' of the people buried there.

My color on my camera was off (I think it has something to do with the operations manager) but I have no energy to try to work it out today - so please excuse lack of color and integrity of the photos.

We spend the entire day going from one treasure to another. I am so glad we started this tour. Oh, we never found that huge banyan tree in Ft Canning either :-(